Ignorance, Expectations and Comic Books

It's clear that I'm nowhere near the level where I'm ready to write my dissertation let alone thesis, however, I am gaining familiarity with a lot of repeat offenders in the limited scope of Korean history. But of course I feel a bit ashamed to proudly write about something that dozens of authorities have lived and breathed decades before me - let alone the historians who are still living and breathing and who are ready to rip apart my interpretations. It just intimidates me a bit to write 300 words on 김구 when it will surely just expose my lack of understanding. However, what am I do to instead? Pretend I'm an expert, just sit back and don't pursue the passion? Lame. It puts me out there a bit but everyone has to start somewhere.

I like what Jonathan Dresner once wrote over at Frog in a Well - "I freely admit that I blog out of ignorance. I blog when I discover something that I didn’t know; I blog when I want to learn something; I blog when I discover that someone else doesn’t know something that I know." Well said. Everyone's got to start somewhere.

I just finished three short 만화 (Manga) books about Korean history and I can't help but want to write a short review of them. In a nutshell they were effective in telling some of Korea's historical past through cute pictures and easy to follow stories although the nationalistic foreign slandering was set on "high" and no countries were spared. Japan, due to their colonial past, are portrayed like wild animals in many instances while the greedy Russians who provided King Kojong with temporary asylum are drawn with unnaturally large, protruding noses. Do I even need to mention the occasional Chinese emmisary who looks like Krusty the Klown doing his "Me So Solly" bit? I suppose such is propaganda but I just expected more objectivity and less "feel how I feel and hate the Japanese as I do" in a seemingly harmless set of cartoon books. I just expected something else.

Speaking of which, I can't find ISBN numbers for these. It makes it a bit difficult to properly review them. How is that even possible to sell books at a place like 교보문고 without ISBN numbers? Anyways, all I can tell you is that these books are published by SeSe Publish House (세세 출판사), written in English and Korean, are brightly colored and come separately in a set of differently shaped books with the following name: "한국의 역사 문화 - Korean Culture and History" followed by a subtitle for each volume:
- vol 1 - 한국의 고대사 Ancient Korean History
- vol 2 - 한국의 중세사 Medieval History of Korea
- vol 3 - 한국전쟁과 근대사 The Korean War and Modern History
- vol 4 - 6.25전쟁과 박정희 The 6.25 War and Jung Hee Park

If you see them, pick them up and get a laugh out of the predictably biased bits of filtered history. Although at roughly 10 000원 a pop, you might be better off checking them out of a rental shop or reading them in the store.

Muninn

I originally came across Konrad's blog through his efforts over at Frog in a Well, a collaborative history blog with dedicated entries for Korea, China and Japan. Normally I just read the Korean posts and I also make it a point to read the comments. Through a five part series he published, he caught my attention:
Early Western Perceptions of Koreans: Part I
Early Western Perceptions of Koreans: Part II
Early Western Perceptions of Koreans: Part III
Early Western Perceptions of Koreans: Part IV
Early Western Perceptions of Koreans: Part V

I would guess that most readers would not find his blog not extraordinary. It's a modest personal blog of a graduate student of East Asian history. What gets me is that he is very detailed about his research methods and writes down his thought process meticulously. Fortunately for me, I'm in a position to learn a lot from people who are in MA and PhD programs and Konrad's blog fits the bill to a T. One really gets a vicarious feeling from his frustrated posts about language study, sifting through archives in a Chinese library, finding a good program to organize pdfs for the dreaded dissertation and his helpful experiences as a Teaching Assistant. Notable posts include his: 2007 year in review, how to organize a jungle of pdfs, his thoughts on Hanja, Making choices in research methods, a great account of Foreigner Shock Meltdown, a nice background on the Seodaemun Prison Museum (서대문형무소 역사관),  faults of Archive Digitization, a surprising account of Anti-Korean sentiment in Taiwan, an entertaining post on code-switching, a three-part series on organizing information for dissertation writing, a new-fangled timesaving device known as a PDF scanner, and a little about his oral (general) exams. Thank you for blogging.

Kind readers, if there are any other blogs of this nature, for the love, share them.
UPDATE: Prison Notebooks will do nicely.

Reading Material

originally posted elsewhere.

What is the deal? I've been reading like it's going out of style. I'm impressed with myself. When I was a kid, I never read for pleasure. Or for school for that matter - thank you Cliff Notes.

In the last year, I have really been spending some quality time with my computer and a few select books. Granted, they have been in a fairly narrow scope: Korea. As technology continues to enrich my life, I've found a bunch of good reads online. Thanks FeedReader and Delicious for organizing everything.

• Jumping The Asymptote is a cultural comparative blog written by Tony Hellman of ATEK fame. It's a newer blog but he is well versed and brings a calm, organized perspective to the table. I especially like his pieces on expatriates, 애교, and Korean dating p.1 and p.2
• The Grand Narrative needs no introduction to fellow K-bloggers. James Turnbull is a smart mofo no doubt about it. His devotion and level of detail is daunting at first but extremely well placed. I applaud his efforts and follow his blog regularly. I'd recommend a starting point, but honestly, it'll just frustrate you. It's like "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie..." once you read one epic post, you'll be tempted to read another one. Do yourself a favor and check out his blog.
• Gusts of Popular Feeling gets down and dirty. The man knows how to delve into a subject and break it into a million pieces. His ability to summarize is impressive. In an otherwise normal personal blog, he chooses a few topics here and there to analyze. Peak at his pieces on objectification of foreigners, Korean youth, and foreigner images in the Korean media.
• White On Rice is an online gem. It's an uploaded personal diary with commentary from a former English teacher in 부산. From 1987. His story-telling ability is unparalleled - when I read his posts, I am instantly transported some twenty plus years ago working a job for peanuts, living a lifestyle unable to sustain forever, and living ill-equipped for a job whose industry and policy has changed by leaps and bounds since the 80s. Cringe at his stories of nights out on the town, laugh about his boom box, giggle at his pink blanket, and smile because he's just so rad.
• Of course the rest is pretty standard (but good nonetheless) online reading material. Roboseyo, Marmot's Hole, Korea Beat, and the like.

Of course, a good book is hard to beat. Especially if it is about history. Here's what I've been reading recently courtesy of Living Social. I picked a few new books and I'm pretty excited to finish them.

The book I'm reading now is rocking all kinds of socks and I'm happy that it survived the summer of 2008 escape in the middle of night. It was raining the night I left Seoul and apparently I was in a hurry because in my haste, I was dragging my suitcase in the rain off the wheels. The book that was bearing the brunt of being drug all over Seoul (mixed with dirty rainwater) left a lovely almost scary four inch long corner of matted paper pulp which makes part of the book unreadable. All of the pages turn a little funny and many of the pages are stuck together but the book is totally worth the dirtiness. UPDATE: best.book.ever.

Anyways, I seem to be reading a lot more than I did a year ago and I feel that the blog that I contribute to at KC101 is partially to blame. I like to read up on Korean news and I suppose that in a way for me to synthesize the information, I write a blog entry about it. It seems that the blog is more for my own understanding. Now that I think about it, it's like I'm giving myself homework. Well, in order to write meaningful posts, I need to read up on various subjects - anything ranging from blind dating, getting a teaching job in Korea, Korean age, to quantity of water consumption. Even though my contribution is but a simple overview filled with overtly cheesy jokes, I like writing for the class. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up the momentum I've kept since this time last year. I can't believe I've written as much as I have now that I think about it. So much more to go, though.